Latest / Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections / Networking Unleashed: S1E26 An Interview with Amitai Sela and Michael A Forman

Transcript

Networking Unleashed: S1E26 An Interview with Amitai Sela and Michael A Forman · Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections

• 0:17
  Hello, and welcome back to the show, folks. I'm
• 0:20
  your host, Michael Foreman, and you're listening
• 0:23
  to the podcast where networking is more than
• 0:26
  just an awkward handshake and bad coffee. It's
• 0:29
  an art and a talent. But here's the twist. It's
• 0:33
  an art and talent you can actually learn. Yes,
• 0:36
  even if you're the person hiding in the corner
• 0:39
  at every event, pretending to check emails. Networking
• 0:43
  isn't just a nice skill to have. It's a game
• 0:46
  changer. When you get good at it, you'll wonder
• 0:49
  why you didn't start sooner. More connections,
• 0:52
  more opportunities, more profits. It's like unlocking
• 0:56
  a cheat code for life. So whether you're the
• 0:59
  life of the party or the just let me stay at
• 1:02
  home and text type, we've got something for you.
• 1:04
  So stick around. Let's turn those awkward small
• 1:07
  talk moments into big wins. Now, I've got a guest
• 1:12
  today, and he's a speaker and a coach and everything
• 1:16
  else. His name is Amitai, and he's worked in
• 1:20
  the industry, the IT industry, in management
• 1:25
  for over 30 years and 10 years as a consultant.
• 1:29
  He started and sold several small businesses
• 1:33
  and is a successful entrepreneur. Now, instead
• 1:37
  of me butchering the rest of his bio, let me
• 1:40
  just introduce him to you first, and we'll go
• 1:44
  from there. So welcome, Amitai. How are you?
• 1:46
  I'm good. How are you? Not doing too bad. So
• 1:50
  give us a little background. Okay. I got my bachelor's
• 1:56
  in computer science. I got my master's in management
• 2:01
  information systems. master's in business, and
• 2:06
  I'm currently working on my MBA. I have worked
• 2:10
  in companies as big as Fortune 10 companies down
• 2:13
  to three -person law firms. So I have a pretty
• 2:18
  big depth and breadth of experience there. I've
• 2:22
  worked as a consultant in a variety of companies.
• 2:27
  I started out basically in help desk support,
• 2:32
  moving all the way up to senior architect over
• 2:35
  my career. Let's see what else. That basically
• 2:39
  sums up my background. I am disabled, and what
• 2:43
  I speak to mostly now is how to use the adaptations
• 2:48
  that disabled people, both non -neurotypical
• 2:53
  and physically disabled people, use. and how
• 2:57
  to leverage those for general management and
• 3:01
  leadership. And you do speeches and your life
• 3:06
  coaching and stuff like that? Yes. Okay. What
• 3:11
  inspired you to become a life coach? And how
• 3:16
  has that journey shaped your approach to coaching?
• 3:20
  What inspired me is my mentors. And how they
• 3:26
  have coached me in my career. And I've also had
• 3:29
  some people who mentored me in my personal life
• 3:32
  journey. And I've learned a lot from them. And
• 3:37
  then I have just my own general experience of
• 3:40
  how to deal with stuff. I've been studying life
• 3:46
  coaching as a practice and theory behind it and
• 3:50
  so forth. And the principles of not just... giving
• 3:54
  out answers, but helping my client discover the
• 3:58
  answers that they already know and creating systems
• 4:02
  and processes for accountability. And that relies
• 4:07
  back on my management experience to create those
• 4:11
  systems. But the person who best knows about
• 4:16
  themselves is the individual. You're the expert
• 4:20
  on you is basically the principle I operate on.
• 4:24
  So we use that to develop the coaching strategy
• 4:28
  for either life coaching or professional coaching.
• 4:32
  Okay. Many people see coaching. Many people seek
• 4:40
  it, but they struggle to take action. What's
• 4:45
  the biggest roadblocks and how do you help clients
• 4:47
  overcome them? Coming up in IT, one of the most
• 4:52
  dangerous phrases we learned was, that's the
• 4:56
  way we've always done it. And you have to be
• 5:01
  open to change. If you want to engage with life
• 5:05
  coaching or professional coaching, the key thing
• 5:08
  is you have to start out being open to change.
• 5:12
  If you're not open to change, then there's nothing
• 5:15
  coaching can do for you. Because you have to
• 5:19
  be willing to accept that accountability and
• 5:22
  that openness. Because obviously what you've
• 5:25
  been doing to this point is not achieving your
• 5:27
  goals. You have to bring it from there. Exactly.
• 5:32
  And everything else, you have to be open to coaching
• 5:36
  to change in order to succeed or to be better
• 5:41
  than what you are. You coach and speak to people.
• 5:45
  one on one, and you speak to an audience, how
• 5:49
  do you adjust? How do you adjust from one to
• 5:52
  the other? Audiences are more generalized. So
• 5:57
  I'm talking more about my personal experience
• 6:01
  and about theory. Whereas in a coaching session,
• 6:06
  one on one, it's very catered to that individual's
• 6:11
  situation and their individual needs. So I start
• 6:17
  out like the first meeting I have with somebody
• 6:19
  is just introductory of me getting to understand
• 6:23
  what they're looking to accomplish out of coaching
• 6:26
  and what their goals are. And then we develop
• 6:31
  it each step. And just using project management
• 6:36
  terms, we meet, we review what we talked about
• 6:39
  previously. We talk about our goals going forward
• 6:43
  and set action items, set some not quite deliverables
• 6:48
  because they're not handing something, but just
• 6:50
  goals for them to accomplish or to work on and
• 6:54
  what difficulties they anticipate, how they can
• 7:00
  take an approach to adapt to those and preempt
• 7:04
  them and do stuff like that with a keynote or
• 7:08
  a workshop. It's really... addressing, it's addressing
• 7:14
  a larger group that is coming to hear about a
• 7:18
  theory or practice and learn from that and then
• 7:22
  take it back and develop it on their own. Okay.
• 7:27
  What's a powerful mindset shift that business
• 7:32
  professionals can make today to accelerate their
• 7:35
  success? One of the Key mindset shifts that seems
• 7:42
  to be what I've noticed a lot of management getting
• 7:46
  away from is the idea of listening with humility.
• 7:53
  A lot of managers, when things are stressful
• 7:57
  or there's pressure, will fall back to a top
• 8:01
  -down approach rather than relying on the ideas
• 8:06
  of their team. And just being adaptive in that
• 8:11
  situation to what gets the maximum productivity
• 8:14
  out of their team versus taking what gets the
• 8:20
  maximum productivity from themselves and just
• 8:23
  imposing that downward. And it's that sense of
• 8:27
  humility of being willing to change and willing
• 8:31
  to listen that. is one of the major things I'm
• 8:35
  seeing management going away from now. And it
• 8:40
  was moving in that direction for a while, but
• 8:45
  COVID and now back to work orders and all that
• 8:48
  other stuff, you're getting a lot of shift and
• 8:51
  pushback because people are getting confused
• 8:54
  and tense with change. Okay. Okay. How do you
• 9:00
  measure? success in coaching and give me some
• 9:06
  results you've seen with your clients. Success
• 9:10
  in coaching is achieving the goal, whatever goal
• 9:13
  we set out from initially. If it's a personal
• 9:17
  goal, one person I was working with on personally
• 9:21
  was she was having relationship issues. and just
• 9:27
  was going through a series of bad relationships
• 9:30
  and couldn't manage to break her bad habits.
• 9:34
  And so what we set as the goal was to really
• 9:38
  set new paradigms for what she was looking for
• 9:42
  out of a relationship and what she had to do
• 9:47
  for herself to see these new relationships rather
• 9:50
  than just, again, go with the same old. She had
• 9:55
  to look at what she thought she was initially
• 9:59
  attracted to versus what she actually wanted
• 10:03
  and how to look for that. And then professionally,
• 10:07
  we've worked on productivity and career advancement.
• 10:12
  And so when it's career advancement, it's pretty
• 10:14
  simple. If they move up in the organization,
• 10:17
  they've achieved that goal. When it's productivity,
• 10:21
  We have to determine what the productivity measure
• 10:24
  is in that situation. If it's a nonprofit, then
• 10:29
  productivity can be measured by how many people
• 10:32
  they've served or how well the interest of the
• 10:35
  nonprofit has been addressed. If it's a corporation
• 10:39
  environment, then productivity is really how
• 10:46
  much results are produced per hour of labor.
• 10:52
  Okay. Okay. You've really explained what success
• 10:56
  looks like. What are some common mistakes that
• 11:01
  are made within the coaching industry and how
• 11:04
  can you overcome them? One of the most common
• 11:08
  mistakes I've seen is coaching being used as
• 11:12
  therapy. And coaching is not therapy. As a coach,
• 11:18
  I'm completely unqualified to give therapy to
• 11:23
  people. I'm not a medical professional, and I
• 11:26
  don't pretend to be. If somebody's looking to
• 11:30
  deal with certain personal issues, then that
• 11:34
  is really a therapeutic role. And a lot of coaches
• 11:37
  want to veer off to that because that's just
• 11:40
  our natural inclination. When somebody approaches
• 11:42
  us with a problem is to give them a solution.
• 11:46
  Whereas as a coach, we have to guide them to
• 11:49
  finding their own solution. So it's as a coach,
• 11:54
  you're almost exclusively asking questions. Whereas
• 11:58
  in a therapy role, you are making suggestions.
• 12:02
  And as a coach, you really, there can even get
• 12:06
  into legal issues with that. You cannot give
• 12:09
  suggestions because otherwise you're not fulfilling
• 12:13
  the coaching role. You're a guide, but you're
• 12:17
  not a solutions provider. Okay. Okay. How would
• 12:22
  you position yourself as a high value coach?
• 12:26
  and speaker in a crowded market? It is a very
• 12:32
  crowded market. I think what makes my position
• 12:35
  unique is coming at it from a disability perspective
• 12:40
  and understanding a more out of the box type
• 12:45
  of thinking and thinking in more of an adaptive
• 12:48
  manner. So taking the idea that a cookie cutter
• 12:53
  solution does not fit everyone. Let's look at
• 12:57
  what adaptations the individual or the organization
• 13:01
  needs to make in order to achieve their goal.
• 13:08
  Be it an organization, sometimes a work -from
• 13:13
  -home solution works really well for some people.
• 13:15
  I've seen other people that it's awful for. If
• 13:18
  they're not in the office, they don't know how
• 13:21
  to function. And the same thing with coaching
• 13:24
  is... If your approach isn't working, let's brainstorm
• 13:29
  and think of other things that you can do that
• 13:34
  might be a better approach. For example, with
• 13:37
  this person that I commented on with the relationship
• 13:41
  issues, maybe something like Tinder is not the
• 13:45
  best option for them. Whereas some of the other
• 13:49
  apps or even going back to the traditional of
• 13:53
  just... meeting somebody in a bar or meeting
• 13:56
  somebody at church or something like that, where
• 14:00
  it's more of a face -to -face interaction where
• 14:02
  you can get a better read on the person rather
• 14:05
  than how they're presenting themselves on an
• 14:09
  app, which is always, it's a presentation. They're
• 14:13
  not going to indicate their flaws. Right. It's,
• 14:16
  it's very cold when you go through texting or
• 14:19
  an app and you definitely more You feel the vibe
• 14:23
  of the other person, to feel the vibe of the
• 14:26
  room, and it can give you a much better feeling.
• 14:28
  Yeah. I've noticed there is an age differential
• 14:32
  there. Obviously, the younger people are, the
• 14:37
  more comfortable they are interacting electronically,
• 14:40
  whereas the older people are, they're going for
• 14:43
  the older methods and meeting the people face
• 14:46
  -to -face. I've noticed a lot of interpersonal
• 14:49
  communication issues with. younger generations
• 14:53
  because they just you know back in my time you
• 14:57
  had to talk to people that's right you do or
• 15:02
  you did yeah and actually you still do uh yeah
• 15:05
  i still operate on that principle absolutely
• 15:08
  absolutely and that's what i am all about all
• 15:12
  about meeting and greeting and seeing the vibe
• 15:15
  of the person and getting to know them creating
• 15:18
  a relationship because Really relationships,
• 15:22
  what's in and building a client list that's really
• 15:25
  out the door. Today's day, it's all about relationships.
• 15:29
  Exactly. Okay, so give me a strategy that helps
• 15:34
  you attain and attract and retain clients. And
• 15:40
  how can my listeners apply them to their own
• 15:44
  businesses? Okay, as far as... attracting coaching
• 15:49
  clients, a lot of it is word of mouth. I do post
• 15:53
  some ads on some local sites or targeted ads
• 15:59
  on Facebook, but they're very general. Like one
• 16:02
  of the ads I most recently did was you have all
• 16:05
  these New Year's resolutions and everything,
• 16:08
  but you don't feel like you can get to them.
• 16:11
  Maybe coaching is a solution for you. And then
• 16:16
  I offered also with that, the introductory session
• 16:20
  is free as a get to know situation so that we
• 16:26
  can both see if I can take them on as a client
• 16:29
  and if I'm the right coach for them. But a lot
• 16:33
  of it is also referral. If you're a good coach
• 16:36
  for somebody, they're going to refer you. And
• 16:39
  eventually, word of mouth, it becomes your best
• 16:42
  situation. Good. Let's bring this full circle.
• 16:48
  And if you could leave my listeners with one
• 16:52
  game -changing piece of advice of their personal
• 16:56
  or professional growth, what would it be? I would
• 17:01
  say listen and divest your ego. Okay. Not everything
• 17:07
  is a personal attack. And even if it is, It's
• 17:12
  someone else's opinion. You don't have to take
• 17:14
  it on personally and let it impact you. Just
• 17:19
  be open to listening all the time. Feedback,
• 17:23
  both positive and negative, can always be learned
• 17:26
  from. And if you divest your ego from it, then
• 17:30
  you're more available to act upon it and see
• 17:37
  what's valid. and what changes you can make if
• 17:42
  they're necessary changes at all. Very good.
• 17:45
  That's very good advice. And that's a very good
• 17:49
  takeaway. If somebody wanted to get hold of you,
• 17:53
  if they wanted to talk to you about coaching
• 17:56
  or speaking or any, how would they get hold of
• 17:59
  you? Our website is currently going through a
• 18:03
  slight overhaul. It's mostly done, but there
• 18:05
  is a slight. bit of overhaul on it, but the contact
• 18:10
  form on the website is probably the best way
• 18:14
  to get a hold of me because it allows me to address
• 18:20
  the person when I have the time to get back and
• 18:23
  really discuss with them. So the website is the
• 18:27
  word problem, the number two, resolution .com.
• 18:35
  Okay, that's good. I can't tell you how great
• 18:39
  this was. You gave a lot of insights to the coaching
• 18:44
  aspect of things on your side. And listen, if
• 18:47
  anybody wants to get hold of Amitai, just please
• 18:51
  do. I think he's got a wealth of knowledge. Thank
• 18:54
  you so much. I really appreciated this opportunity.
• 18:57
  I think what you're doing is really great out
• 19:00
  there getting all this stuff out there. I'm glad
• 19:03
  you enjoyed it, and I'm hoping to spread your
• 19:07
  message all throughout, and I wish you very much
• 19:11
  success. Thank you so much. Well, hold on, folks.
• 19:16
  Don't go anywhere. Let me just read a few of
• 19:18
  our sponsors that we have. Struggling to reach
• 19:21
  success? Maybe it's time to quit. In Quit Your
• 19:25
  Way to Success. by Rodney Davis. This reveals
• 19:29
  27 steps to breaking bad habits that hold you
• 19:32
  back. This powerful book helps you rewire your
• 19:36
  mindset, take control of your actions, and turn
• 19:39
  setbacks into stepping stones. With real -life
• 19:42
  examples, motivational quotes, and actionable
• 19:45
  lessons, especially for sales professionals,
• 19:49
  you'll gain the tools to quit what's stopping
• 19:51
  you and start winning. Transform your future
• 19:54
  today. So Quit Your Way to Success by Rodney
• 19:58
  Davis, available now on Amazon. And this is a
• 20:02
  nonprofit called Revved Up Kids. This is something
• 20:06
  I believe in wholeheartedly. Revved Up Kids is
• 20:09
  on a mission to protect children and teens from
• 20:13
  sexual abuse, exploitation, and trafficking.
• 20:16
  They provide prevention training programs for
• 20:18
  children. teens, and adults. To learn more, go
• 20:22
  to revvedupkids .org. That's R -E -V -V -E -D
• 20:27
  -U -P -K -I -D -S .org. Well, that's a wrap,
• 20:34
  folks. A huge thank you to our special guests
• 20:37
  for sharing such incredible insights today. And
• 20:40
  of course, a big shout out to you, our amazing
• 20:44
  listeners, for tuning in and spending your time
• 20:47
  with us. Remember, networking isn't about being
• 20:50
  perfect. It's about being present. So take what
• 20:54
  you've learned today, get out there and make
• 20:56
  some meaningful connections. If you enjoyed this
• 20:59
  episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave us
• 21:02
  a review and share it with someone who could
• 21:05
  use a little networking inspiration. Let's keep
• 21:08
  the conversation going. You can find me on Apple,
• 21:12
  Spotify, YouTube or my website. Michael A. Foreman,
• 21:17
  remember, until next time, keep practicing, keep
• 21:21
  connecting, and keep building those relationships.
• 21:24
  This is Michael A. Foreman signing off. Take
• 21:27
  care and happy networking.